I'm really excited to be here! I've just recently seriously studying Theravada Buddhism in the past few months before that I came from a western philosophy and Mahayana background. The Theravada tradition appeal to me as its more analytical, which makes it much easier to because of my training in formal logic. My family are fortunate to live right by Wat Dhammagunaram in Layton Utah. I have just started cruising around the forum and I'm very impressed at the caliber of people here. I hope to learn much in this forum and hopefully grow wiser. Any suggestion or advice that someone care to give to a novice practitioner?

If you have asked me of the origination of unease, then I shall explain it to you in accordance with my understanding: Whatever various forms of unease there are in the world, They originate founded in encumbering accumulation. (Pārāyanavagga)

Exalted in mind, just open and clearly aware, the recluse trained in the ways of the sages:One who is such, calmed and ever mindful, He has no sorrows! -- Udana IV, 7

The heart of the path is SO simple. No need for long explanations. Give up clinging to love and hate, just rest with things as they are. That is all I do in my own practice. Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself into anything. Do not be a meditator. Do not become enlightened. When you sit, let it be. When you walk, let it be. Grasp at nothing. Resist nothing. Of course, there are dozens of meditation techniques to develop samadhi and many kinds of vipassana. But it all comes back to this - just let it all be. Step over here where it is cool, out of the battle. - Ajahn Chah

---The trouble is that you think you have time------Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe------It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---